Jazzin’ Jim, Talkin’ Tut: A Colonialist Confesses

One hundred years ago, two landmark events occurred in the cultural sphere. Both have been deemed the ‘birth’ of postcolonialism. James Joyce published Ulysses, an infamous novel about Ireland, written in exile. Banned at home and abroad, it was a novel whose publication coincided with the Irish War of Independence and the creation of a separate nation state, an action that inspired many other British colonies, India included. The same year saw the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. This event represented the high water mark of ‘robber baron archaeology’, where experts from the imperialist centre plundered sites in the colonial periphery and carried their treasures back home. Such was the frenzy triggered by ‘Tut’ that questions were thereafter asked about the nature, the interpretation, the ownership of the Other’s ancient artefacts. Arguing, analogously, that the Postcolonial Marketing Communications community employs the language, the discourse, the concepts of the Anglo-American academy, this contribution contends that until such times as PMC scholars write back in an indigenous manner they will remain in thrall to the imperialist oppressors of CCT. Offering an autobiographical take on Tut ‘n’ Jim, this irreverent account of the author’s ‘colonialist’ activities is one way of doing so.